Tel Aviv – For the past year, hungry Gazans have waited desperately for more food to enter the besieged area from Israel. After relief trucks were allowed in, there were periods of looting.
But now armed criminal gangs are intercepting entire convoys.
Truck driver Abu Ahmad was involved in the worst incident yet when more than 100 trucks were attacked on Saturday. The gangs shot through the windows of his truck, he told CBS News, and said they would kill any driver who did not stop.
Ahmad said Israeli tanks were nearby and an Israeli drone saw the entire attack.
However, the Israeli military says it is not responsible for protecting the aid convoys, a premise that former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert disagrees with.
“The Israeli government does not want this to happen. They want to punish the Palestinians because the premise is that all Palestinians in Gaza support the terrorists and therefore they all need to be punished,” Olmert told CBS News, adding that if the Israeli army is able to build roads in Gaza, it should “be able to make the necessary logistical arrangements” to provide humanitarian support to the people living there.
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Thursday the International Criminal Court arrest warrants issued for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Mohammed Deif, a Hamas leader who Israel says was killed in an airstrike in July. The charges included “crimes against humanity” and the use of “starvation as a method of war.”
Netanyahu called the accusations “anti-Semitic” and the White House said it “fundamentally rejected” the decision.
Gaza’s poorest residents are already scavenging for food from garbage dumps, while woefully little aid crosses the Israeli border. Much of what does reach Gaza is stolen at gunpoint, exacerbating the humanitarian crisis in the area.
It is clear who should solve it, said Juliette Touma, spokesperson for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Gaza.
“It is up to the State of Israel to ensure that aid reaches those in need,” Touma said. “They are the occupying power.”
Local police in Gaza used to protect convoys in Gaza, but since February Israeli soldiers have been attacking them, accusing them of links to Hamas.
Meanwhile, almost two million Gazans are struggling to survive.
“But to want to starve them, hundreds of thousands of people, to prevent them from getting the food and water they need to survive, is appalling and unacceptable. us in a very, very painful way,” Olmert said.
Elizabeth Palmer
